The maple sugar industry has for decades sought ways to improve upon the traditional methods used to extract sap from sugar maple trees. The event typically takes place in the spring when the fluctuating temperatures between relatively warm days and very cold nights cause the sap to migrate from its creation in the root system of the trees into the trunk and branches of the trees. To harvest the sap, holes are drilled into the trunks and taps are secured in the holes. In the more traditional method, a bucket is hung so as to capture any sap that exits the tap. The buckets are left hooked onto the tree until sufficient sap has filled the bucket. The bucket is then removed from the tree and poured into a larger container for transport back to a processing station.
Relatively new advances have improved the quantities harvested from a given size plot of land. Now, trees are tapped and hose lines are secured to the taps to permit the sap to travel from the tree directly to a collection vessel, or directly to the sap processing station. Vacuum pressure is used to urge the sap out of the tree and down the hose line.
To address interference with the hoses from animals, weather conditions and the like, sensors and/or monitors may be used to monitor the integrity of the hose connections. Any failure of a hose connection will prompt a signal to be sent to a monitoring station to alert the system owners or managers to check the specific hose line involved in the sent signal.
A more recent advance in the maple sugar industry involves a cultivation technique that requires a branch or trunk to be cross-cut to leave a stump-like top surface such as disclosed in US 2015/0040472. This “stump,” a sapling, is capped with a piece of plastic superposed about and secured to the stump. A hose is secured to the cap with the lumen of the hose in fluid communication with the space defined by the plastic cover and the stump surface. A vacuum force is applied to the hose/cap apparatus to urge sap to migrate out of the stump and into the hose. The disclosed cap may be to formed from semi-rigid or flexible material.
Although this system appears to have increased the sap yield per acre of land, there are drawbacks to the apparatus and method. First, the method requires the use of specialized combinations of materials to achieve the desired sap flow. Common taps cannot be used with this method as there is nowhere to secure the tap to the stump/cap combination. This essentially eliminates the possibility to use common taps to extract sap from the trees. Another problem has to do with keeping the space defined by the stump and the inner surface of the cap open. With the application of vacuum pressure, the pliable cap material can be suctioned against the stump, which will retard sap flow. To solve this problem, a specially designed cap support with perforations is used to keep the cap material from collapsing when under vacuum pressure.
A further problem has to do with the need to stretch the hoses from multiple trees to create a gravitationally fed downhill flow path. The hoses are set at a high point at the furthest tap from the collection point. The lowest point is the main collection point. The cap system of the '472 application is not sufficiently robust, particularly the caps made from flexible material. The '472 addresses this issue by using a drop line secured to a main line. This adds one additional tube and two additional tube connections.
What is needed and what we have developed is a tree/branch capping method that permits the use of common tree taps and eliminates the need for a specialized cap support structure to maintain a space for sap to flow and additional hose lines and hose connectors to achieve a downhill flow path. Our apparatus also eliminates the need for a vacuum system although the apparatus is adaptable for vacuum assist. These and other objects are disclosed as shown in the drawings and detailed disclosure below.